ABOUT

BIO
Born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and raised in Quito and Macau, Cecile Chong draws upon experiences spanning the Americas and Asia. Her public art
installations include Held & Holding at Queens Botanical Garden (2026); Chicken Little: Líneas de Falla / Fault Lines in the 42nd Street subway corridor (2026); Chicken Little: Lost in Transmission at 125 Maiden Lane (2024); Prickly Issues at Maker Park (2024); and EL DORADO – The New Forty Niners, presented throughout New York City’s five boroughs (2017–2022).

Chong is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, Art Omi, Marble House Project, Dieu Donné, the Joan Mitchell Center, and KODA. Her solo exhibitions include Kates-Ferri Projects, Smack Mellon, the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, and Kenise Barnes Fine Art. Her work has also been exhibited at Q Galería at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, El Museo del Barrio, the Nevada Museum of Art, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Wave Hill.

Her work is held in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Chinese in America, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Long Island Museum. Chong received an MFA from Parsons School of Design, an MA in Education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College. She is a member of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program.

Artist statement
For Cecile Chong, making is a form of research. Shaped by her Chinese-Ecuadorian heritage and experiences across the Americas and Asia, her work examines how materials, objects, languages, and living forms carry histories of migration, adaptation, and cultural exchange.

Working across painting, ceramics, installation, video, public art, and participatory projects, Chong allows the physical and cultural histories of her materials to guide her process. Ceramic, volcanic ash, wax, botanical forms, handwritten languages, and recurring Guagua figures connect personal memory to broader histories of movement and transformation. Through immersive environments, she invites viewers to consider what people inherit, what they carry, and how connections among cultures, landscapes, and generations shape our shared humanity.